Sultan Abdul Hamid II, an Ottoman ruler who reigned from 1876 to 1909, was famously known for his love of coffee. In a corner of the antique furniture display at Dolmabahçe Palace’s museum, there is a story engraved about his daily habit of drinking seven cups of Yemeni coffee. His passion underscored the mark of the first coffee trading that influenced the Turkish coffee culture in the present time. To make the experience becomes more rich in culture, they were also initiated to import an Egyptian sand to be used to brewed their Kahvesi in a fancy pot.
The influenced of aristocracy in shaping this culture, becomes more than just a luxury afternoon snack for upper-state individuals. In the alfresco of Karakoy and in the grove of Sultanahmet, from touristy café to coffee kiosks have already provided this type of coffee luxury, brewed in a copper pot using the same Egyptian sands. The people in this café are varied, from students to entrepreneurs, from locals to tourists and from middle class workers to upper higher state people, they are all gathered under the same roof to be served a hot cup of Türk Kahvesi.
As a person who has been living for years to grab a coffee in a paper cup and go, in hustling busy street of Jakarta to work, or in a long queue of Hermano’s in London to catch up for the afternoon class, the tiny cup of a bold Türk Kahvesi confused me.
A barista in Sultanahmet told me, “It ensures the coffee stays warm and allows for a slow, deliberate sipping, which is crucial for the ritualistic and social aspect of drinking Turkish coffee and engaging in conversation. The better the quality of the conversation is, the longer it lasts. That’s why a cup of Turkish coffee is meant to encourage social gathering and meaningful conversation. It is nodded by an article from National Geographic, highlighted a famous Turkish saying: “‘Eat sweet, talk sweet.’ If you just want to chat, we drink sweet tea. If you want a serious talk, then we have coffee.”
“A cup of movement”—that’s how coffee is seen nowadays in the northern part of Istanbul, especially in Beşiktaş. After a temporary pause in the Taksim Square protests due to the Eid holiday, Istanbulites found a new way to express dissent toward the government: by boycotting their beloved coffee.
The sound of protest rang loud across Beşiktaş, a district known for its predominantly left-wing, secular residents, more so than in any other part of the city.
‘They’ve been boycotting the big coffee chains here as a protest against inflation and the government. That’s why we haven’t had as many customers as usual,‘ said Fatah, an Indonesian coffee shop owner at Envai Café in Beşiktaş.
‘But some still come to boutique cafés like ours. Most of them are loyal customers and part of the community,’ he added.
Unlike any other café in Istanbul, Envai provided more modernized and globally known type of coffees — from latte to cappuccino, all imported from Colombia and Indonesia. ‘Istanbul is pretty much late when it comes to the modern coffee style and coffee chains. They are practically new in this kind of coffees.’ Said Fatah, who were started his coffee career as a barista, to a known coffee judge competition in Istanbul. ‘That is why, many people come in here on the evening after work or school, they found lattes are less stronger and makes the conversation last longer.’
People in Istanbul are indeed a great conversationalist, they love to talk about everything. From touristic recommendations, entrepreneurship 101 until political discussion, they have you on the brewed copper pot — hot and intriguing. The longer the night, the more traditional the music is changing, the colder the coffee is becoming, the more interesting the conversation will be. That’s how, most of the movement and actions are initiated in a small coffee shop of Istanbul.
It’s fascinating to see how the aristocratic ritual of drinking coffee has, in recent days, been turned against the very institutions it once symbolized, echoing resistance in every sip the people take. The meaning of coffee has evolved from a tradition steeped in copper pots to a statement brewed in paper cups. Once, Turkish coffee was cherished not only for its rich taste but also for the fortunes told in the grounds left behind on the cup. Now, with a closed paper cup in hand, people choose to face an uncertain future—fortune to read, just the quiet defiance of modern protest.
In this story, I will take you on the journey of how we redefine the word compromise while collaborating together as a team to reimagine the organization we are choosing. The rollercoaster experiences can only be explored in every scene of this story while finding out the impossibility of having every imagination narrowed down into specific ideas. This collaboration project might have altered our team dynamic but also changed us individually.
How We Started
The shift from Unit 1 to Unit 2 of MA Applied Imagination felt like being caught in a sudden storm— intense, and completely unavoidable. Just as I was beginning to settle into the rhythm of the course, I was thrown into an unexpected challenge: a cross-disciplinary collaboration with MA Innovation Management students. Thus, I have to compromise with the unknown. Regardless, the concept of the collaboration project itself was thrilling because it could be an opportunity to merge perspectives and rethink how organizations within the Knowledge Quarter could be future-proofed with our combined ideas. But as we were teamed up, an unshakable feeling settled in—I knew this collaboration would change us, but I had no idea whether that transformation would lead to something remarkable or unravel into chaos; however, one cannot rationally proclaim that they know everything about everything, or even everything about their own fields (Miles, 1989).
Our various backgrounds and gaps filled in each other’s puzzle: the planner, the strategist, the researcher, the brainstormer, and the finisher are assembled into a team of the ‘Power5Girls.’ Although we might switch roles and try to expand our boundaries by doing something we were not before in this team, this made us really hopeful for our team in the future and made us become more understanding to one another. During the forming stages, much of our time was spent defining our values and mission, carefully crafting our team charter.
So, what values did we choose to make this creative collaboration work? We call these values the ‘X-Factors’;
Through all of these shared values, this collaboration sounded promising—practical, even. But as any good baker knows, the real challenge begins once the cake is in the oven.
Going Right Down to the Rabbit Hole
As the reality began when we were required to decide which organizations to choose, this is when we were actually sailing the uncharted waters. We wanted so much—the ideas, the authenticity, and definitely the perfect ones—until choosing made us stretch more time than we required. It was also challenged by our consistency to obey our charter until one of us was getting too loose and too tight to stick with it; hence, this was when our true color started to emerge. It did not become clearer before we started our first tutorial in the British Library.
We addressed our variety of interests to our tutor: arts, fashion, marketing, and technology that made us stuck in inertia. And all of a sudden, “¿Por qué no los dos?” our tutor said. Our eyes twitched in confusion because none of us understood. “I mean, why not do both?” he translated to us. Henceforth, the words become our mantra to realize our choice, a space where everything is possible to be established—a theater. This is when we compromise to choose the New Diorama Theatre as our organization.
New Diorama Theatre is an independent theatre in the London Borough of Camden, situated in the prime office area where most of its demographic are high earners and well-educated. The plays are mostly made by the independent writers and producers; therefore, the shows are more experimental compared to the West End theatre. It also has a functioning cafe-bar on the front side of the theater, which is more lively in the daytime with the young working people who spend their time with their own laptops in the cafe. These facilities seemed to back up their financial growth aside from the government and investor funds.
We visited the theater three times, two times for the experience tour and once to watch the show after a 10-day gap. Its limited space also created a sense of exclusiveness to its certain community only; therefore, the shows were less appealing than the mainstream. The visit made us come to realize that some of our experiences here did not validate our initial desk research, that most of the theater audience is similar to the cafe customers, or the demographic of the Camden borough itself. Apparently, most of the audience who came to the ‘Lynn’s Faces’ show that night were the total opposite of what we knew—they were middle-aged, mainly retired, and had a relationship with the artists. On that account, we are questioning the belonging of the theater and which community should it be focused on.
Is There Any Way Out There?
Apparently, our attempt to secure an interview with the general manager of the New Diorama Theatre was met with rejection—not only were we denied a conversation, but we weren’t even given a recommendation for someone else on the management team to speak with. On top of that, many potential interviewees either didn’t respond to us either way. Without a clear path forward, we found ourselves stuck in a loop—returning to desk research while simultaneously searching for alternatives.
And we found out more from the article given by the Arts Council through email, that apparently, the institution is encouraging the creative industry to be immersed with technology. It appears that technology is driving the future of creativity by funding and supporting artists who experiment with emerging digital tools, enabling new forms of artistic expression, global exposure, and economic opportunities in the creative industries (Arts Council, 2024). This opportunity may be a good decision for the future of New Diorama Theatre, but in fact, they may not have the capacity due to its financial constraints.
Not all decisions turn out to be the right ones, no matter how much data we gather. Some missteps are minor, while others can have more serious consequences, yet we continue making choices based on perceptions of the world that may not always be accurate (Sinek, 2009). In relation to that, we tried to identify our ‘Why’—a guiding purpose that could prevent us from being overwhelmed by excessive information and constantly shifting directions. However, as promising as this approach sounded, our storming phase was anything but smooth.
Bounded by both external setbacks and internal conflicts, the tension within the team gradually eroded the sense of fun we had initially valued. Conflicting desires & thoughts happen everyday in the project and we are helpless to keep them in line (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997), and that was exactly what happened to us. This became evident during our formative assessment, where the jury pointed out that our research lacked a clear big question—further complicated by the pressure of time constantly ticking away.
Compromising Our Way Out
“The best way out is through”, quoted by the poet, Robert Frost. During the first months of my master’s degree, navigating intense research under tight deadlines, conflicting ideas, and differing approaches to re-imagining the organisation often made me wish the process would end sooner. But an ending wouldn’t mean much if the problems remained unresolved. Instead, we went back to our core value of communication—coming together, sitting down as a team, making use of the traditional post-it ideation and assembling our thoughts to find a way forward.
Taking into account, we agreed that the future of technology is unavoidable, meaning this is the hypothesis we considered. As AI advances we are leading to The Synthocene Era, where humans use AI as a tool for growth rather than control. This shift will push brands in entertainment to create unique and differentiating moments that wow consumers (Future Laboratory, 2024). But, does fringe theatre really need advancement in technology while their actual backbone comes from the community and bonfire experience? The answer is maybe. Therefore, we draw the lines on our hypothesis– is the future actually very human? Knowing no superficial technology can empower the collaboration experience, even in the team. The touch of humans actually still matters the most.
During our session with Jamie Brasset, ex-Course Director in Innovation Management, he stated that envisioning the future shapes our present, as speculating about a specific future influences our current actions. In addition, adjusting our behavior today in response to future expectations, we ultimately reshape the very future we envisioned. Therefore, to compromise both of the hypothesis and the anti-thesis, we synthesised them into “Humanising The Tech” to bridge the best of both worlds. Thus, our question narrowed into speculating “How might we enable a deeper connection between theatre enthusiasts and the art form by integrating technology with tradition, allowing NDT to grow its audience and community despite limited rebranding funds?” This question brought fresh air as if we were out of the woods.
Out Of The Woods
Openness can drive innovation but beyond that it poses coordination challenges, impacting individual and organizational search efforts (Salter, Ter Wal, Criscuolo, & Alexy, 2015), henceforth, we maintain our ideation strictly to our question while proving our idea through an intervention using a fake website project. The purpose of this intervention is to prove whether people actually wanted to immerse their show with technology, or remain conventional.
Apparently, the result showed that people were interested and clicked on the immersive theatre but, they finally added the conventional one to the basket more. The data from the intervention is aligned with what our experts said and what we found from the survey we distributed to 53 respondents. From the survey, it is also proven that many people enjoy conventional experience the most but not stopping themselves to try something new.
In addition, experiencing immersiveness in a conventional performance might be something they are looking forward to in the future of the theatre.
Thus, “¿Por qué no los dos?” – we compromise the needs of the consumer and also the future of the theatre. Our expert in theatre producer, Franny Anne Raferty, validated this “It’s all about creating a more dynamic relationship with the audience. And let’s face it, with everything happening digitally these days, people want to feel involved in something real, something they can touch and feel, not just watch on a screen.” And from that, this is how we reimagining New Diorama Theatre:
We future-proof the theatre using two streams of ideas; altering the current business model through marketing, and proposing new services that are directed to the people and the product.
First, we developed a membership plan that not only rewards our audience but can also strengthen a long-term connection with NDT and enhance the sense of community.
Onto the proposal to people services, we bring the idea of stage is everywhere or blended spaces, a concept-driven cafe where theatre extends beyond the stage, offering immersive storytelling through themed dining, projection mapping, and interactive art. This experience-driven approach shifts passive waiting time between shows into an engaging journey, maximising space efficiency and deepening audience connection. By aligning the cafe’s ambiance with running productions and integrating storytelling techniques, we create a bridge between its consumers in cafes and consumers in theatre.
And lastly an immersive theatre remix, where audiences become co-creators and influence classic plays in real-time through interactive the concept of Event Cinema. By partnering with larger theatres and inviting emerging theatremakers, we blend Event Cinema techniques with traditional theatre, offering an experimental platform for interactive, hybrid performances. This not only enhances audience engagement and content accessibility but also positions New Diorama Theatre as a pioneer in the future of theatre, creating a win-win for larger theatre seeking experimental formats, emerging artists needing a platform, and audiences craving immersive engagement.
Finale
Learning compromise is the biggest lesson throughout the journey. Compromising our own ideas and ego as a mixture of our collaboration spirit until compromising the feasibility of our ideas that might work or not to our organization. We were finally able to present our idea on the first schedule list, and it left not only feeling relieved because it is done, but realisation that we won the game as a team which is more rewarding than ever. The concept of compromise has changed for me personally, it is no longer about how to give in for peace, but actually stitching all minds together to make things work.
